An Introduction
In the Mid-Atlantic Region, local governments understand the importance of language access. Unfortunately, few of these governments have actually taken the necessary first step to provide governance in the way of laws and regulations.
These laws and regulations would supply clear guidance for the following:
Centralized agency oversight
Language access requirements by percentage of population or number of individuals
Designation of language access coordinators per agency with major public contact
Monetary and disciplinary fines for violations of denying language access
Defining standard practices for essential/vital documents
Defining standard practices for quality reviews
Defining standard practices for qualified providers
Managing language access can appear quite complex. However, if institutions and governments take the necessary steps to move forward by working on governance, strategy, process, management, and automation, while applying ACSI’s Language Access Maturity Model TM, this management can certainly be accomplished. When a client achieves complete language access integration, they ultimately save themselves costs, and benefits increase, such as customer service quality.
Stay tuned for our next series of articles that will delve deeper into the specific stages of the language access maturity model, as well as expand on the steps necessary to develop successful language access!
Rebecca Ray, Donald A. DePalma (2017). Localization Maturity Model: Release 3.0, CSA Research